“Many males went to all-boys private schools and males brief their mates …“[1], so the story goes…

Has anyone ever looked at who practices law from a qualitative perspective – particularly looking at the range of practitioner’s backgrounds? The newspaper story above would have us believe that the CV of most lawyers reflects a narrative that may not be true.

Take my private school life – it did not exist – actually, there were many periods in my primary school life where my schooling did not exist: I had long periods of absence either because of travelling or being too ill due to being bought up in a less conventional lifestyle – however, I still managed to attend over 10 schools (none private and including three universities).

This morning’s Guardian states “prospective lawyers must…do a law degree at 18 – which internationally is seen as an oddly young age to embark on a professional vocation“.[2] The same applies for many Australian hopefuls wanting to enter the legal profession. Continue reading →

“Symbolic Meaning”: You expect to lie on a couch with the bearded therapist prying into your relationship with your mother through interpretation of your dreams using Jungian symbolic meaning or Rorschach inkblot tests… but it is not so hard …Here we explain the TM, R Circle and Copyright symbols without the beard or couch.

Intellectual property has evolved from a collection of legal rights to now being a major asset that performs independently, when compared to other assets. Has this evolution changed the way in which IP performs relative to economic change?

Last week the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) released statistics for each country’s registered IP trends against GDP and other indicators. Registered IP includes patent, trade mark and design registrations.

These statistics show that the rate of growth of registered IP in the major economies have had a marked decrease: that is, the growth in the number of patents, trade marks and design rights filed has fallen from 2008 onwards. WIPO’s mapping of registered IP filings against GDP, shows registered IP filings to be much more volatile and extreme when compared to change in GDP. Continue reading →

There are obvious parallels between launching any new branded product and the arrival of a new baby. Think gestation period, inflexible deadline, exhausting launch, heralded arrival and of course naming.

Even if children are only in your peripheral vision, you will be aware that certain names are very popular. There is probably a maximum of two degrees of separation between you and a young William, Jack, Oliver, Joshua, Thomas, Lachlan, Cooper, Noah, Ethan, Lucas, Isabella, Ruby, Chloe, Olivia, Charlotte, Mia, Lily, Emily, Ella or Sienna (see Popular names NSW 2010). Continue reading →

Why do space suits matter for inventors or entrepreneurs wanting to take a product to market?

It’s not to make a fashion statement, help defend against rejection from potential investors/customers, or to attract attention. Rather, the process of designing, developing and making space suits matters because it helps teach us something about the way we make decisions.

In terms of decision theory, the process appears to epitomise the “maximising” approach to decision-making strategies – i.e. identifying an “optimal solution” for each of a number of problems before making a decision. Or, so it seems…